Legend Of A Failure: Uzumaki Naru
by RishiGenki
Summary: It's been years since the seventh lord hokage left this world. But he did leave his three children, all destined for great things. Here's the story of his youngest: Uzumaki Naru, the failure. Future fic. Narux?


_RishiAndSquee present_

_Legend of the Failure: Uzumaki Naru_

_Hey! It's Rishi and Squee, who are finally back! More or less._

_Anyway, so, we're here to re-write an incomplete fan-fiction from a real long time ago, called Flukes. Since you'll probably wonder how bad of a writer we both were back then, we're leaving it there, and renaming the new fan-fiction Legend of the Failure, which is a much more interesting title by far. Anyway, please enjoy and don't forget to review, okay?_

Chapter One: **GRADUATION X STONE FACES X PERFECT**

Uzumaki Naru sat on the moonlit window ledge, staring up into the sky at the moon. The night was silent, even the frogs had stopped croaking. Naru sighed as she fiddled her fingers. Sleep had escaped her grasp a long time ago.

_Dear moon…you're so full tonight. _

Naru glanced at the clock that resided by her bedside. "Happy birthday to me." She muttered. "How happy indeed." Naru rested her head on the window-sill, humming "happy birthday" to herself quietly, lest her older sister hear her.

_The graduation exam is in the morning…_ she thought, inwardly groaning. _Another year, another failure._

Naru again glanced at the moon, this time with contempt in her eyes. _Why can't you stop time, dear moon? Why must time continue?_

Naru wrapped her arms around her legs and leaned on the window pane, her eyesight dimming, knowing full well that sleep had finally come to pay its due.

_This'll be the third time…_

"You know if you sleep like that, you'll get a crick in your neck"

Naru forced herself out of the darkness. It was light out. As she turned to the voice, she groaned again. "Go away, Tsubeto." She buttered, shielding her eyes from the now evident sunlight. "I'm busy sleeping here."

The boy in front of her was tall, around six foot tall or so, and wore a mask around his face similar to Hatake Kakashi of the Sharingan eye. Blond hair came out in tuffs, and his blue eyes were round and clear.

"Come on, Naru. You know for a fact that today's your graduation exam." Tsubeto lifted his younger sister up. "Haru-nee'll be really mad if you don't go." A grin was visible through his mask.

Naru glared at the older boy. "Don't you mean that today's the day I_ fail_ the exam, and that Haru-nee'll be pissed anyway?"

Tsubeto sighed, then put his younger sister down and brushing a blond bang out of his eye. He ruffled Naru's head. "Come on, you've at least got to try. What would mom and dad say if they saw you acting this way?"

Naru shrugged Tsubeto off. "I wouldn't know." She replied harshly. "Mom and dad are _dead_."

"Naru…"

"Just shut up, okay?" Naru stepped away from Tsubeto, rubbing the sleepiness out of her eyes. "Why the heck are you acting like this? Go away."

"Naru, I'm your big brother." Tsubeto replied. "Even if you hate me…"

"Shut up! I don't hate you! I just hate…!" Naru suddenly stopped speaking. She quickly jerked away from the older boy and opened the window. "Oi, Sasu! What are you doing?!"

"Come on, Naru! We're going to be late!" another voice, a younger one, called back.

"Why are you here? I told you I wasn't going to come!" Naru yelled back.

Uchiha Sasuke, whom Naru had been calling Sasu since they were children, a boy with raven colored hair and onyx eyes, was standing below the two siblings. His eyes were like a puppy dog's. "Let's go, Naru!" he called back timidly, regardless of the what Naru had just announced. "I'm not going unless you come with me."

Naru glanced back at Tsubeto, then jumped out the window without another word. "Come on, Sasu." She muttered, tugging on Sasu's purple sleeve as an indication to keep going. "Let's go."

The two walked in silence for what seemed like an eternity, when, finally, Sasu spoke up. "You had another fight…?" He glanced at Naru, who had not replied. "Why are you all always fighting? You and Tsubeto and Haru."

Naru shrugged, silent. After choosing her words carefully, she replied. "It's because I'm the failure of the family. They can't stand me. Or maybe it's because I didn't inherit father's good looks." Naru scoffed. "I look exactly like my mom did, apparently, before she died. The only thing that's not the same is these." She indicated the two whisker marks on her left cheek, then the three on her right. "All of us have these. Must be a dominant trait on dad's side."

"That isn't true…" Sasu spoke softly. "I don't think you're a failure. And I think you're really pretty. Your mom was, too." With those words spoken, Sasu turned pink. It had been unspoken that the two had affection for each other, but nearly everyone around them knew, except for maybe Naru, who, like her father, was as dense as it came.

Naru seemed not to notice Sasu's change in demeanor. She shrugged. "Whatever. All I know is that you're at the high end of the scale and I'm at the bottom end, even though I'm not last. Haru'll have a fit when she sees my grades after I fail."

The two were silent again. Neither of them wanted to be separated.

Naru stopped short. Sasu turned to look at her questionably.

Naru's neck was arched to get decent view of the eight stone faces that loomed above the two. She was counting in her head. "One, two, three, four, five, six…father…uncle Konohamaru…" she said aloud, as if she was reciting it. "Wonder if they'll help me today. They were best in the village…our leaders…the hokage of the past and now."

Sasu knew all too well what Naru was thinking. He gently took Naru's hand. "Come on," he said quietly. "We're going to be late."

Naru looked at Sasu with surprise, as if she had forgotten what the two were doing. But Sasu knew that she had forgotten. Naru was always entranced with the stone faces. Once, when the two were much smaller, before the Seventh Lord had died, Naru had spent the entire school day staring at the stone faces.

Slowly, Sasu started walking again, keeping Naru's hand in his own.

He knew that even though she didn't want to admit it, she wanted to pass with flying colors. She wanted, for once in her life, to be the best. Sasu knew everything about Naru. Silently, he closed his eyes and wished for Naru to pass with him, together.

By the time naru and Sasu had reached the ninja academy, they both could see the all-too familiar ponytailed ninja waiting at the door, a cross look on his face. They both knew that the exam was well on its way.

"Morning, Sensei." Naru said, giving a lazy, half hearted wave.

Iruka twitched. "Naru," he said, trying to keep his temper under control. "You're late. Again. And you too, Sasu." He sighed, rubbing his temples. "You choose today, of all days, to be late?! Ninja who can't be prompt don't deserve their positions. Remember that!"

Sasu's eyes trailed the ground. Naru, on the other hand, had gotten this lecture all too many times, and it had lost its charm. "My apologizes." Naru said, partly sarcastic.

Iruka twitched again. "Fool!" he said. "You're just like your father! Get inside!" Iruka jabbed his finger to the door as the two obedient students obliged.

The classroom was noisy. Sasu looked longingly at Naru one last time before sitting in his seat, placed in the front on request of his father, mouthing the words "good luck" as Naru strode past.

Naru continued up the aisle, ignoring her surroundings, before slumping down at her seat in the very back. "Ugh…" she muttered, putting her head down in a futile attempt to catch a nap.

"Had trouble sleeping last night?"

Naru jerked up, swerving her head to the speaker. "Aburame, I keep telling you to stop doing that!" she hissed.

Aburame—Naru had forgotten her given name, but Aburame preferred it that way—seated herself next to Naru. "I keep telling you to be aware of what's going around around you, but you don't listen, now, do you? I have to keep things fair." Naru could tell that Aburame was smiling, despite the trenchcoat she wore that covered the lower half of her face, and that her eyes were laughing underneath her sunglasses.

Naru scoffed, rubbing the sleep that had remained out of her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping you company." The stoic girl replied, a bit abrupt. "You don't seem too keen on socializing today, as usual."

"No, well, I know that, but why are you in here? Haven't you already passed the exam?"

"Very perceptive." Abuyrame replied, taking her headband out of her pocket, then tying it around her forehead. "I was hoping that I would be able to converse with you a little longer before you noticed."

"You're the first on the roster, and the test already started. It wasn't that hard to figure out."

Aburame flipped her brown hair, which Naru found amusing of the normally silent-to-all classmate.

"Hyuuga Nejiko!" Iruka called loudly, cutting of Naru and Aburame's conversation for a second. Naru turned at glanced at Nejiko, the very top of the class, the prodigy. Naru rolled her eyes as Nejiko passed and turned back to Aburame. "Anyway, what were we saying?"

"You and Hyuuga are good friends?"

"What the hell are you saying?"

"I seem to remember you two conversing quite a few times in the past. I even recall you going home together. Unless, of course, you're more than friends…"

"Ah! Shut up! God, what's with you? How do you know all this stuff? We're twelve, for crying out loud!" Naru's face had turned bright red. "We're not friends or anything!" Naru buried her head in her arms in an attempt to make Aburame go away. "Even since we were kids, I've gone over to her house a lot because our dads were friends. And after mom and dad died, they kept inviting me over cause I don't have anywhere else to go sometimes."

Naru closed her eyes, putting an invisible wall between the two classmates.

After what seemed like a long time, Aburame spoke again. "You can always stay at my place, you know. My family is a bit…odd, but they always welcome visitors."

There was no response from Naru, who had either fallen asleep or pretend to. Aburame knew it was the latter. "Family talk" had always put Naru in a bad mood.

As each name was called, Naru became more and more aware of the fact that her impending fate was coming, closer and closer. She knew if she didn't pass, she probably would be miserable at home, and even if she did pass, Haru would yell at her for one reason or another anyway.

"Uzumaki Naru!"

Naru opened her eyes Aburame was gone, and probably had been for a long time. Naru stood, making her way towards the front. No one but Sasu looked at her—Sasu, with a headband wrapped around his forehead. His eyes were pleading, or maybe apologizing==maybe both, maybe neither. Sasu's eyes were always like that, always pleading her, egging her on, trying to give her strength…it was then that Naru remembered her older sister's cold blue eyes, like ice, the perfection that they always demanded and never could grasp what they wanted from Naru. Naru looked away from Sasu and followed Iruka down the hallway.

"So…this is your third time too, huh?" Iruka said, trying to break the ice that surrounded Naru. "I have confidence that you'll pass. I've seen you practicing after school almost every day."

"Bunshin is my worst technique." Naru muttered coldly. "I still can't get it right." Her eyes would not meet up with her teacher's.

Iruka ruffled Naru's hair. "What me to tell you a secret? Your father's worst technique, when he was younger, was the Bunshin, too. And he became Hokage." Iruka smiled in hopes that the young girl would follow suit. She didn't. He tried again. "I'm sure that you're going to pass. I have faith in you."

Naru finally looked up into her sensei's kind hearted eyes, and gave a small, half smile.

Naru opened the door to the examination room. There were three teachers, including Iruka. Naru stood still, frozen with fear, her anxieties swelling up to double their size.

Naru closed her eyes, trying to fight the anxieties and fears, her older sister's eyes, everything. All there was in that moment was Naru.

Naru raised her hands, somehow finding the will to make the hand signs necessary. Her hands were shaking. She knew that. The teachers knew that.

"Bunshin no jutsu…art of the doppelganger!"

There was a cloud of smoke. As the smoke cleared in the seconds that followed, Naru's face dropped. One doppelganger stood before her, while another lay sickly on the ground. Naru's face burned with shame. "I-I'm sorry." Naru said quietly. She quickly made her escape out of the room, before the teachers could comment, because she knew she had failed. She knew that there was no hope, that the Hokage of the past didn't care, couldn't hear the prayer that she had made.

Iruka looked on at Naru's back as she rand, dejectedly.

"Maybe you do have a chance, Naru."

Naru had saved herself the embarrassment of going back to the classroom. There was no point in going back, when she was the only one.

Instead, she found herself on the rickety old swing that was tied to the tree in front of the academy. She pushed her feet slowly, her heart clearly somewhere else.

"There's always next year."

Naru glanced up at Iruka, who was clearly concerned.

Naru looked down again. "Three strikes, and you're out." Naru mumbled. "I'm not coming back next year." Naru kicked a rock. "Nee-sama's going to have a hissy fit." She gave a short, sarcastic laugh. "Can't say I'm too thrilled on going home again."

Iruka's heart dampened. "Naru, your father failed his graduation exam three times, too, but he never gave up."

"Liar. Dad graduated after he learned the Kage Bunshin…on his third try. Don't try to make me feel better. I thought I could be just like dad, but I don't know the Kage Bunshin. I'm no good." Naru's face became contorted with frustration and agony.

"But he only learned that after—"

"Shut up!" Naru suddenly stood, shaking her head furiously. "I'm sick and tired of being the weak link!" Naru nearly flew off the swing as she ran, out of reach.

Iruka sighed, rubbing his temples for the second time that day. "Doesn't this seem all to familiar…Kakashi?"

Kakashi leaned down from one of the high branches of the tree. "Mmm." He nodded in agreement. "All too familiar."

The tears wouldn't stop.

Naru was ashamed; of her weaknesses; of herself. After the Ninja Academy was finally out of sight, she slowed to a stop, trying to catch her breath.

When Naru finally calmed down enough to realize her surroundings, she found the Stone Faces looming above her. She was under the seventh one—her father. Naru looked up at the stone inscription of the man who had brought her into this world. It was perfectly chiseled, down to the indents where her father's whisker like marks would be. Three on each side. Six in total…perfect.

Naru found herself touching her own cheeks. She had three marks on her right, two on her left. Five. Not perfect.

It was funny, so Naru mustered a laugh. Her father was perfect, her sister was perfect, her mother was perfect, her brother was perfect…why did she have to be the black sheep?

Naru sighed, settling herself on the dirt ground. She realized that she had a crick in her neck. Her brother was right, yet again.

Slowly, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.


End file.
